Residential and commercial buildings are often equipped with many safety features in order to deal with emergency situations. For instance, buildings often include smoke detectors and alarms adapted to alert people of an on-going fire to allow them to take safety measures, such as exiting a building in a safe manner. Additionally, many buildings include a network of fire extinguishers and fire-protected stairwells to protect those from harm due to fire and smoke. Often, these measures of alerting and protecting building dwellers are sufficient.
On occasion, a building may be damaged in such a way as to prevent the safe egress from the building. For example, the stairwell or exit corridor may be consumed with smoke or fire. Similarly, the exit path may be blocked due to earthquake damage. For people in a single story building or on the first or perhaps the second floor of a building, this may not be a problem because people may, to some degree, safely exit the structure through a window or door.
In situations that involve a multi-level or high-rise building, this situation of a blocked egress in the building may present a difficult or dire problem for the habitants. If, for example, some of those people are present at the lower seventh floors of a building, a fire truck ladder may be used to reach them, and bring them down in a safe manner. This is assuming that those people are able to wait out the emergency until a fire truck arrives. This may not always be the case.
In cases where building dwellers are above the seventh floor, other means, perhaps a rescue helicopter may be needed to safely remove those inside the building. This may not always be possible, as in the case of the 9/11 New York City's twin tower disaster. Not only are the building dwellers susceptible to this kind of adverse situation, but fire fighters as well may get trapped in a multi-level building with no easy course-of-action to safely exit the structure. Thus, there is a need for an apparatus to facilitate a safe egress from a multi-level or high-rise building or structure.